In its next step to curb its looming deficit, the Evanston/Skokie School District 65 Board of Education unanimously passed a $13.3 million spending reduction for fiscal year 2026 at its meeting Monday.
The reduction is part of Phase 2 of the district’s Structural Deficit Reduction Plan to eliminate its $13.2 million deficit. The board heard four potential scenarios for Phase 2 reductions at its Jan. 13 Committee of the Whole meeting, and the public shared their thoughts about the scenarios at a series of community input meetings.
Superintendent Angel Turner presented an updated version of the scenarios at the Monday meeting, all of which prevented cuts to preschool transportation and decreased the number of full-time equivalent positions under the school section reductions category from 22 to 18. These modifications decreased the previous $15.2-16.1 million reduction scenarios to $13-$13.3 million.
The board passed Turner’s recommended Scenario 2, which reduces staffing by 73 full-time equivalent positions. Other reductions include academic skills centers, summer learning programs and bus aides on routes serving the general education population.
Preschool transportation for general education students had originally been on the chopping block, but community members and Board President Sergio Hernandez voiced concerns about what that would mean for vulnerable students.
The Illinois State Board of Education does not require districts to provide preschool transportation. Board member Joey Hailpern emphasized that preschool busing is something the district is not required to do but chooses to do for its impact on the school community.
Board member Biz Lindsay-Ryan said the staffing reduction was a “loss.”
“There’s nothing to celebrate in this,” she said. “These are real people behind these numbers that have really served our district well. It’s a loss for all of us collectively, but also individually.”
Turner said the district won’t know the full impact of the reductions until they are implemented in the next fiscal year. As part of the SDRP, the board also approved a reduction to its summer learning programs and its summer daycare program for school-aged children.
The board decreased the total cost of the district’s summer learning programs by about 47%. In doing so, the programs’ capacity can serve 420 students, a 32-student reduction from last summer’s programs.
For School-Age Child Care Summer Daycare, which offers K-5 non-academic childcare in the summer, the board voted to keep a variation of the program, but the details still need to be flushed out, Hailpern said.
The program is optional, and families pay to enroll in it. Board members agreed that the price of the child care — currently set at $1,800 — needs to be increased to help with program costs. Last summer, the program went over budget by more than $5,700.
Turner said the program will be “reimagined” with the SDRP in mind, as the district will have fewer staff members in the coming years.
Part of this revision includes decreasing the staff-student ratio to one staff member for every 10 students, in compliance with Illinois Department of Children and Family Services guidelines. The current ratio is one staff member for every five students.
Board member Soo La Kim said it is important for the SACC Summer Daycare to be a self-sustainable program.
She added that reductions to such programs are the “long game” and will occur over time, as the district continues evaluating its spending in Phase 3 of the SDRP and tries to preserve its ability to be a “service-rich and curriculum-rich district.”
“We’re trying to preserve as much of that rich curricular experience as possible, but it does come with a lot of pain in other areas, and I think we will all feel that impact,” Kim said.
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